Pause: How to Slow Down, Create Value, and Lead Brilliant Work

“Gives you the tools you need to focus on the things that matter. Essential!” —Kim Scott, New York Times bestselling author of Radical Candor

Proven strategies to get your team’s best work in the most distracting environments.

Is the pressure to do more with less pushing you to burnout? Are you leading a team that’s busy but never at its best?

Most people don’t underperform because they lack talent or ambition. They underperform because their environment makes sustaining great work nearly impossible. But you don’t have to lose your team’s best work to endless distractions. With Pause, you won’t.

Pause gives you twelve ways to deliberately tap the brakes so your team can go faster and bigger on top priorities, even as AI turns up the pressure to overextend your team. Drawing from original research on over 150 major companies from Amazon to Google to LinkedIn, speaker and consultant Shawn Vanderhoven discovered that teams with leaders who pause spend triple the time on their biggest projects—regardless of the chaos that surrounds them.

With this actionable framework, you’ll learn how to:
- Protect focus by identifying and replacing crazy distracting messaging habits
- Generate momentum by turning fuzzy goals into crystal-clear targets
- Reveal the hidden workload that’s silently killing deep work
- Recognize when your people need your ear to increase their ability to concentrate
- Turn rumination into confidence by using mistakes to fuel growth

Through these practices and with captivating case studies, Pause gives you the strategies to cut through the noise, deliver remarkable results, and become the boss everyone wants to work for.

Shawn Vanderhoven is a partner at The Wiseman Group leading their development practice for senior executives and emerging leaders. He works with top brands like Apple, Johnson & Johnson, and Tesla, building strategies to leverage their greatest assets: talent. He lives with his wife Anne in Menlo Park, California.

Anne Vanderhoven is a researcher and writer, endlessly curious about how the best leaders create conditions for brilliant work. She is a cofounder of the consulting firm UP. She has a penchant for medieval history and comedy.